Jay Cutler's season officially over, will have shoulder surgery

Chicago Bears QB Jay Cutler is slated to have labrum surgery on his shoulder this Saturday, which will officially end his 2016 season.

Chicago Bears QB Jay Cutler will miss the remainder of the 2016 campaign, as he's slated to have labrum surgery on his throwing shoulder this upcoming Saturday.

Cutler suffered the injury in Week 11 against the Giants. The shoulder injury was reported last week but the Bears denied it, saying instead that Cutler was "day-to-day." He was listed as doubtful for last week's game against the Titans.

"On the Jay Cutler note, we did try to exhaust all the non-surgical remedies," head coach John Fox said today. "Jay’s a tough guy. He’s proven that to me in the past with multiple different types of rehab. It’s been a couple weeks now. Now the next alternative is to have surgery. He’ll have surgery on Saturday. He’ll be placed on IR here shortly."

The Bears said the delay in placing him on Injured Reserve was to be sure surgery was the correct path to take.

"He’s tough. He waited the two weeks, a lot of rehab," Fox said. "They’re in there all hours of the morning and afternoon and evening. There were some different treatments that I’m not going to get into all the exacts. But typically things you try to do to avoid surgery and they didn’t take for him like they were expecting. And we’re at the surgical mode at this point.

"I talked to him earlier today. He’s in good spirits. It wasn’t like it was never going to be an option. You try to avoid it, especially for a quarterback on your throwing shoulder. But he talked to many capable doctors, like he should. So that’s been the determination at this point."

The Bears will move forward with fourth-string QB Matt Barkley under center for the remainder of the season. Former sixth-rounder David Fales will be the backup.